


Sitting and Speaking

by Mariabella Baggins (AgentFrostbite)



Series: The Dragon Riders of Middle Earth [6]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Bella does not see problems with petting "Death-Bringers", Dis is WAY NOT COOL with Bella petting "Death-Bringers", Dwarves have slightly rash ideas, Emotional support Night Fury, F/M, Female Bilbo Baggins, Female Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Hey, Hobbits are still riding dragons, Thorin does not get paid enough to put up with this crap, but in this one it's mostly Bella petting them, in which Bella admits aloud that she loves Thorin, look what tags I forgot AGAIN, lots of exposition, some character development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21775966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentFrostbite/pseuds/Mariabella%20Baggins
Summary: Bella's conversation with Thror has been less than smooth, and both she and Thror's grandchildren know why. There is a story to be told about the gem nestled in the throne above the King's head, and the end of that story will be up to two Dwarves and a Hobbit who isn't what she seems. Besides, Bella has a few problems of her own, mostly in the form of explanations owed to one rather handsome Dwarven Crown Prince.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Series: The Dragon Riders of Middle Earth [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1341334
Comments: 9
Kudos: 80
Collections: One Two Switcheroo





	Sitting and Speaking

**Author's Note:**

> I WANTED TO DO THE BELLA AND THROR DISCUSSION SO BADLY, BUT I AM **NOT GOOD** WITH ARGUMENTS. I will write it eventually, I promise.
> 
> Also, hi. I was on hiatus for a while, but the merry-go-round has come back around to Hobbit/HTTYD and I have a slight course adjustment because ~~I forgot what I wanted to do~~ I have new ideas about how to make character/romance development go smoothly and naturally.
> 
> Plus, I saw how many reads some of these got and I got the warm fuzzies and my muse was like "Hey, I LIKE reads, AND I like writing Hobbit/HTTYD. What if we did that??" (To which I replied, "Ya coulda been doing it the whole time, but whatevs...")
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy the next installment of Hobbits Riding Dragons!

"…just about the most completely unreasonable thing I have ever had to suffer through!" Thorin had never heard her voice that shrill, but Grandfather tended to have that effect on people.

"Guess it went well," Dis remarked sardonically. Thorin frowned, then knocked. Bella's ranting stopped immediately, and he could only guess what she was doing – since, because Hobbits refused wear shoes, he couldn't hear her walk – until she opened the door.

"Prince Thorin. Princess Dis." She curtseyed, then stepped aside to let them enter. Twilight watched the pair with her ever inquisitive yellow-green eyes, and Lucky – curled up next to the fireplace – trilled happily upon seeing Thorin. Dis was rather unsettled by the dragons, but said nothing at all. "What, uh, what can I help you with?"

"We wanted to check on you after the meeting," Dis answered.

"Grandfather can be a bit harsh on newcomers," Thorin added. Dis bit back a scoff. Bella's gaze flew to the floor. "I hope he wasn't untoward."

"No, no!" she responded quickly, looking back up at him. "Not at all. He was actually rather pleasant."

"Until?" Dis interjected. Bella fiddled with the skirts of her Shire dress. "It's alright, dear, we know he's not in his right mind. It's that gem. There's something unnatural about it." At the mention of the Arkenstone, Bella's eyes went wide with shock and fear, and she went completely stiff. Both Dwarves noticed the change and stiffened themselves. Twilight watched the scene with rapt attention, and Thorin could tell that, somewhere in her uncannily intelligent mind, she was probably working out how to get Bella out of the room. "You know what it is."

"I…" She faltered. "I-I can't…" She looked into the fire. Lucky trilled, more softly this time, and trotted straight up to her. There was something about the way she looked at him, the way he looked at her, how the fire reflected off them both, that felt familiar. Like a coil of magic wrapping around them, its aura spreading toward the rest of the room, simultaneously drawing Thorin in and pushing him away, and he wondered…

She couldn't be, could she?

Then again, those were Fae trees, on that first flight, and she'd been so different beneath their ethereal light.

"As a scholar, I make it my business to know as much as I can," she started. As she spoke, her nervousness compelled her to wander about the room. She glided, almost like a ghost, and her shoeless feet made naught a sound. "It's a passion, one that benefits my job tremendously, and I come across quite a bit of reading in my travels. It was more common when I was younger, when I ran hundreds of miles under-wing. But living so close to Faes, especially Laprawns, has given me access to many repositories of Faish knowledge not commonly known, even among their own kind."

"So it _is_ a Forest-wi-" Dis stopped, remembering the company she was in and that the slur might not be well appreciated. "What do you know of it?"

"It's called the Arkenstone, and that's its proper name. But the Fae know it by another title."

"The Heart of the Mountain," Thorin guessed.

"It's one of several Faish gems, designed to keep the realms they guarded free of evil and shadow," Bella answered. "I know, it's not-" She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "It's not doing what it was designed for."

"Why?" he asked. Bella sat by the fire, and Lucky crawled into her lap. She absentmindedly stroked the little dragon, likely to give herself something to do, much to Dis' abject and very visible horror.

"A long time ago, before the Dwarves settled this mountain, the Orossi – Stone Fae – lived here. The two groups barely even knew the other existed for generations. But when they did run into each other, they were living in the same Mountain, the Dwarves were digging down-"

"And the Fae sent us a gift?" Dis finished, bitterness in her voice. Something dark flashed across Bella's face, for just a moment, but disappeared quickly, and Thorin wondered if he'd actually seen it at all.

"No. There were discussions about space, and some of them got heated, but the Fae knew what kind of warriors the Dwarves were, the Dwarves knew that the Fae were called Stone-charmers for a reason, and so the two groups never fought with anything but words. After all, Mahal and Yavanna _were_ married, and seeing as the Dwarves are the children of the former and the Fae are adopted descendants of the latter, they thought it best not to fight. Things actually came to a head when one of the Kings Under the Mountain – his name has been kept secret, likely to protect his legacy outside the borders of Faish settlements – agreed to let the Fae have the Mountain."

"How'd we end up with it, then?" Thorin asked, crossing his arms. Bella didn't look up.

"He died, everyone mourned, and the High King and Queen of Farasail – the rulers of all Faes – granted the Mountain to the Dwarves for all time because of his generosity. All the Fae moved out, and the Dwarves kept going down. The Fae gave them the Mountain gem, signifying that the Mountain was recognized as belonging to the Dwarves."

"I imagine people weren't happy about that," Dis remarked.

"No, they weren't. Which is why, a generation later, there was an uprising. It failed, of course, but they corrupted the gem with a curse of dragon-sickness to all of the line of Durin who ruled with it. It was given to the Guardian of the Mountain until they found a solution or cure, but by the time they did, things had gotten…tense. And the Guardian was long lost, so they simply left things as they were," Bella finished. "I'm quite sure they still have that book; it'd just be a matter of finding it."

"So we find it," Thorin replied, a determined look in his eyes. Bella didn't think it was the kind of look that prefaced a nice meeting, either.

* * *

"So what are you going to do?" Gerontius asked. Bella paced back and forth uneasily. She ran her fingers through her hair, exuding nervous energy.

"I don't know! He _insists_ it must be in the library, and I do believe him, but I have no idea how to explain to him that he can't just walk in there, _I_ can't just walk in there, and that if we both do, he'll never trust me again!" She sank into a well-made, intricately carved wooden chair, placing her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees, and sighed deeply. "I'm lost."

Gerontius nodded, frowning in that "I know the answer" way of his, and stood beside her. "And what do we do when we are lost?"

"Scream into a pillow until we pass out?" Bella guessed uselessly. He shook his head, and she straightened up. "We go find a map."

"We go find a map." He crossed the large room and reached into his pack, pulling out a handful of maps of both Farasail and the Shire. "Which bit should we study today?"

It was a tradition of theirs, one that Bungo introduced to the family. It was one of the few Baggins' ideas Gerontius had taken to heart. The best distraction was to review knowledge or stories, things easily recited and fallen into, to remove oneself from the crisis situation for a fresher look upon return. Bella sat by Gerontius, and for half an hour, they recited towns and stories, streets and fables, until Bella naturally relaxed into the familiar rhythm of oft-trodden thought paths with Twilight and Thorn purring beside her and her grandfather.

"Now…" Gerontius said, rolling up the map. "You need to find the book or paper – whichever they wrote it on – and see what can be done about the Arkenstone."

"But to get into the library, I'll have to tell Thorin and whomever he brings that I am, in fact, a Faish Queen," Bella added. "The library is guarded well, and I suppose I could fly out now and tell the palace to settle down so we can search, but I have no idea what this thing looks like, or if it's even in the library." Bella paced back to the bed and slumped onto it. "It would be so much easier if I'd done this before now, if I could hide it somewhere they'd find it, or…something."

"You could stage it," Gerontius remarked, pulling out his pipe and packing some Old Toby into it. "Go there tonight, tell Hayla everything, and hope it doesn't look strange when they find no-one there and the map/book/paper easy to find."

Bella shook her head. "I could, but…" The silence stretched for a long while, prompting Gerontius to turn and watch her. She met his gaze with a somber look. "Grandda, what was it like when you met Nana?" she changed the subject suddenly.

Gerontius tried to look surprised, but he'd been suspected this line of questioning would come along sooner or later. "It was a late fall afternoon. The wind was blowing sharply out of the north, and Marilee had a scarf she'd received as a courting gift from a Hobbit lad a few years back." Bella stared, enraptured by the story, which neither she nor her cousins had ever thought to ask. "The wind took hold of her scarf and flung it into one of the oak trees on the Market Lane. I heard her shouting after it, and she looked so dismayed, my feet found themselves marching toward the tree after the strip of soft wool. I climbed the tree, right to the top where the scarf had been caught in some thin, poking branches. Oh, it took a good five minutes to get the blasted thing untangled, and I got a few scratches for it, but I managed to get back down with the scarf safely in hand."

"What did she say?" Bella asked, smiling like a fauntling hearing a fairytale.

"She thought it was a noble thing for one stranger to do for another. Unfortunately, neither of us had a good grip on the scarf, and the wild wind stole it away again. We had a rueful laugh over it. We ran into each other – quite literally, mind you – in the Market later that week, and she asked me to walk with her. We've been together ever since."

"How come I've never heard that story before?" she asked, tucking her legs underneath her.

"You've never asked. When you were younger, you were more interested in your parents' stories than in ours, and by the time you were almost of age, love was a forbidden topic," Gerontius answered with a grin. There was a long stretch of silence, and Bella gradually curled in on herself until Twilight – sensing something wasn't quite right with her beloved rider – nudged Bella.

"I think…" she started and trailed off. "I think I might be in love with Thorin."

"Oh?" Gerontius remarked, puffing on his pipe. Bella failed to notice the knowing nonchalance.

"I think I have been since I rescued him from that Nadder." She gave Twilight a pointed look. "That was still your fault, you know." Twilight purred loudly.

"Dragon are smart creatures. Oftentimes, they know how things will work best before we do, especially when they know us well," Gerontius said sagely. Bella then turned her attention to him and his twinkling eyes. "I am an old Hobbit, Bluebell. I've seen my fair share of smitten couples and know love in many forms. I can recognize a good pairing when I see one."

"What do I tell him?" she asked helplessly. Gerontius let that question sit in the smoke-filling air, and then leaned forward, staring into Bella's soul with an intensity he didn't use often or lightly.

"You have to tell him the truth. No more hiding. No more lying. You are who you are, and if he truly is your Soulmate, he will accept you, crown and all," the Old Took answered. Bella pursed her lips and nodded, then sat there for a long while thinking. In fact, she thought from then until she put her head to her pillow that night, and despite all that thinking, she couldn't figure out how to tell Thorin in a way they might both recover from.


End file.
